1:04:02
commitments to do one ports from Oracle and
1:04:07
and Sybase and the other key database vendors.
1:04:10
[ And why was that critical? ]
1:04:12
because we knew that in order for
1:04:14
the open source story to be credible
1:04:17
and especially in order for the Linux story
to be credible,
1:04:20
we'd have to get commitments from
independent software vendors
1:04:24
to do ports of their applications to these platforms
1:04:28
and I was actually kind of worried
1:04:31
I thought that we were in a window of vulnerability
1:04:34
between the time that we announced
the open source campaign
1:04:38
and the database vendors flipped over
1:04:40
that was the point at which hostile action
1:04:43
by Microsoft or other close-source software companies
1:04:48
that was the point in which
1:04:49
a serious marketing blitz might have sunk us
1:04:52
but once the big database vendors flipped over
1:04:57
that opened the way for other ISVs
1:05:00
that started the snow ball effect going
1:05:02
Every six months or so
1:05:05
I would come back to the venture capitalists
1:05:07
I would show them the new numbers
1:05:09
showing more and more people adopting Linux
1:05:11
and new people porting, new users
1:05:14
and I'd show them our customer list
1:05:16
And our customer list was getting much more impressive
1:05:19
It was people like Cisco that were beginning to appear
1:05:23
people like, you know, those dot-com companies
1:05:26
were started to show up on our customer list
1:05:28
and eventually the venture capitalists
1:05:32
you know, they kept looking at it
1:05:34
they kept saying "Oh, we can't quite do it"
1:05:36
Finally, Linus appeared on the cover of Fortune
1:05:40
There was something happening with Open Source
1:05:43
Well, at that point, the venture capitalists
couldn't ignore it
1:05:48
they just got sick of hearing about Linux everywhere
1:05:51
and they got tired of me, just, you know
1:05:54
showing it to them every,
at that point it was almost every week
1:05:58
So they uh, they decided it was time to invest,